FETUS REACTION TO MOTHER SMOKING CAPTURED ON ULTRASOUND

Who Would Put Their Babies Through Such A Thing??

Researchers in Durham and Lancaster universities have released 4-D ultrasound images showing the mouth and body movements of fetuses when their mothers inhaled cigarette smoke. Its disgusting, and the findings were published in the Acta Paediatrica journal.

During the study, researchers took 80 ultrasounds of 20 babies between the 24th and 36th weeks of pregnancy. Out of the 20 cases, 16 babies had non-smoking mothers and four had smoking mothers. The mothers who smoked had an average of 14 cigarettes each day.

Durham University

The top row shows the babies whose moms inhaled smoke and as you can see, they are covering their faces and moving their mouths in disgust. The bottom row depicts the non-smokers.

The Durham research found that “fetuses whose mothers were smokers showed a significantly higher rate of mouth movements than the normal declining rate of movements expected in a fetus during pregnancy.”

T he fetal central nervous system did not develop at the same rate in the babies who were exposed to smoke.

“These results point to the fact that nicotine exposure per se has an effect on fetal development over and above the effects of stress and depression,” lead author of the study Dr. Nadja Reissland commented.

Dr. Reissland’s co-author, professor Brian Francis confirmed: “Technology means we can now see what was previously hidden, revealing how smoking affects the development of the fetus in ways we did not realize. This is yet further evidence of the negative effects of smoking in pregnancy.”

All 20 of the babies were clinically assessed upon their births and were born healthy. For all you mothers out there, please stop smoking.